Europeana, the new digital library that is the result of collaboration between 27 European countries debuted on November 20 and had tremendous initial success. The website soon crashed due to the interest it had generated,averaging more than 10 million hits per hour. It will supposedly return in mid-December. The project has been characterized as a “pan-European digital library, archive, and museum.” While the digital collection is not available, there are several web pages that do work and provide basic information about the project. including the following blurb:

“Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive – is a 2-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a prototype website giving users direct access to some 2 million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers. The prototype will be launched in November 2008 by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.”